Besing

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To sing of or sing about; celebrate in song or poetry; sing the praises of; praise; laud. transitive

    "I have read Stories, (I fear, too true ones;) how young Lords, like you, Have thus besung mean Windows, rhymed their Sufferings Ev'n to th' Abuse of Things Divine, set up Plain Girls, like me, the Idols of their Worship, Then left them […]"

  2. 2
    To sing to. transitive

Example

More examples

"I have read Stories, (I fear, too true ones;) how young Lords, like you, Have thus besung mean Windows, rhymed their Sufferings Ev'n to th' Abuse of Things Divine, set up Plain Girls, like me, the Idols of their Worship, Then left them […]"

Etymology

From Middle English besingen, from Old English besingan (“to sing of, bewail, sing charms, enchant”), from Proto-West Germanic *bisingwan (“to sing about”), equivalent to be- (“of, about”) + sing. Cognate with Saterland Frisian besjunge (“to sing about”), West Frisian besjonge (“to sing about, praise”), Dutch bezingen (“to sing of, chant”), German besingen (“to sing of, sing the praises of”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål besynge (“to sing of”), Swedish besjunga (“to sing of”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.